It can’t be easy being August Burns Red. They’ve been around for 14 years, they’ve seen the rise and fall of metalcore. They were one of the most prominent figures in bringing it to a wider audience. They’ve had many opportunities to define themselves, and many have solidified their own personal feelings about them. Does a band in this position seek to change anyone’s minds? Do they just stay the course? Should they even be criticized for doing so? Trying to analyze these trains of thought as a critic can lead one down several rabbit holes. But perhaps one should consider the perspective of the band. They’re on their 7th entry, they have nothing more left to prove, so they can make whatever they feel like. And Phantom Anthem definitely feels like that. A quality band comfortable in their shoes, making the music they want to make.

At this point, it must seem like we’re long past beating a dead horse when it comes to using this space atop our Editors’ Picks column to reiterate the mantra of “there’s just too much music!” But as we’re sure many of you have noticed, the amount of new music we face on a weekly basis far outpaces the time needed to digest it all, something we were reminded of yet again when it came to facing the onslaught that was September. Not only did the month have five Friday release days instead of the usual four, each of those official marker points for new music seemed to attract an enormous quantity and quality of releases from all corners of the music landscape. When we (The Editors) finally pared down our playlists and picked our personal recommendations for the month, we found ourselves with perhaps the longest list of album suggestions we’ve ever presented to our fine readers. Among these are albums from artists both old and new that hail from nearly every genre we all listen to on regular basis. This being the case, let’s not waste any more time and instead get to digging through the gold pile that was September.

If you’re into extreme metal in any capacity, the name Dallas Toler-Wade may no doubt ring a few bells. You may best know him from his two-decade tenure as vocalist and guitarist for seminal death metal band Nile before his departure earlier this year. Now, his project Narcotic Wasteland — whose self-titled debut album dropped in 2014 — is back as a full-time unit rounded out by drummer Phil Cancilla (Hank 3), guitarist Edwin Rhone, and bassist Chris Dupre.

As the group are gearing up for the release of sophomore album Delirium Tremens (due October 13th through Megaforce), Dallas himself was kind enough to give us a rundown of the most influential bands and albums that shaped his growth as a music fan and as a musician. Get a look into The Anatomy Of Dallas Toler-Wade’s musical development below.

There’s a lot happening in the music world, and we here at Heavy Blog try our very best to keep up with it! Like the vast majority of heavy music fans, our tastes are incredibly vast, with our 3X3s in each Playlist Update typically covering numerous genres and sometimes a different style in each square. While we have occasionally covered non-metal topics in past blog posts, we decided that a dedicated column was warranted in order to more completely recommend all of the music that we have been listening to. Unmetal Monday is a bi-weekly column which covers noteworthy tracks and albums from outside the metal universe, and we encourage you all to share your favorite non-metal picks from the week in the comments. This week, we’ll be highlighting a few albums and tracks that struck our fancy over the past few weeks. Head past the jump to dial down the distortion:

So, we mentioned the Sacred Son artwork controversy before. The chill artwork for the very real black metal album drew some ire, so we got the man behind the curtain to join us and tell it all. And it was a good time! We talk about the artwork (of course), but also the project itself, Dane’s views on the black metal scene and more. Eden and I then discuss new material from Augury, First Fragment, Cavalera Conspiracy (check out my retrospective), Leander Kills and The Kindred. We also discuss Metalsucks’s legal assessment of the Decapitated case, Marilyn Manson’s onstage accident, and Between the Buried and Me reacquiring the rights to their older material. Then we have a cool people section about some stuff, including the Netflix documentary Long Shot, Total War: Warhammer II, Annihilation (the movie), Blade Runner 2049 and the upcoming Dune movie.